The present invention relates to straw dispersing apparatus, and more specifically to apparatus usable to shred straw into small particles and to disperse the particles over land, thereby providing for erosion control.
It is necessary to provide such erosion control in construction sites, both large and small. For small construction sites, straw has been dispersed in the past by manually pulling apart bales and spreading it, or by feeding small bales into shredders, and blowing the shredded straw out of a tube. Prior art devices of this type have had a limited throughput, because, they can only handle small bales of straw (with approximate dimensions of 1 foot by 1 foot by 3 feet). Conventional systems also require human operation of a blower direction system.
Even with the relatively small amount of straw handled by prior art systems, those systems tend to clog, which requires shut-down periods and results in higher costs. Clogging results in at least two areas of conventional systems: (1) the conveyors that feed the bales of straw into the shredder, and (2) the blower that ejects the shredded straw out of the shredder.
None of the conventional dispensers is designed for high straw throughput or for covering relatively large areas of land in relatively fast periods of time. i.e. an acre of land in approximately a minute.
Accordingly, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide straw shredding/dispersing apparatus which overcomes the drawbacks of prior art systems.
One object is to provide such apparatus that allows one-person operation.
Another object is to provide such apparatus with a preselected orientation of multiple sets of straw shredding units to shred efficiently shreddable material.
Yet another object is to provide such apparatus with an inlet structured for handling large volumes of shredded material.
A still further object is to provide such apparatus with a conical inlet to a blower.
Another object is to provide such apparatus with an anti-clogging subsystem.
In brief summary, one aspect of the invention includes a straw shredding/dispersing apparatus that shreds straw or other shreddable material into small particles and disperses the particles over land. A conveyor feeds shreddable material through a door into a housing. Within the housing, the material is carried into a shredder in which three sets of shredding units, such as rotating chains, shred the shreddable material. The first two sets of such chains that impact the material rotate at a slower speed than the final, innermost set. A centrifugal blower sucks the shredded material through a tapered inlet, and forces the material through a selectively directable ejector tube. The ejector tube is remotely controlled to direct both its radial and vertical orientation.
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will be more clearly understood from a consideration of the accompanying drawings and the following description of the preferred embodiment.